It's our Killer Instinct
It's a vicious cycle. Life came first. Then came art. Then art imitated life, then life imitated art imitating life. What we have on our hands here is what sociologists call the "Multiplicity Effect"; where one bad apple ruins the entire bunch and then everyone develops a taste for bad apples. The taste of a good apple becomes repungent or lost to us, in as much as Gollum lost his taste for bread from eating raw or rotting flesh.
In a nutshell, when we create art, it creates a profound sense of appreciation in others for various reasons - mostly for aesthetic or entertainment purposes. That's why art exists. But we've developed a taste for making art that would inspire a more visceral kind of aesthetic appreciation without the positive influences - hence these games and movies. Now we're addicted to it and we can't imagine a world without it.
When one person is daring enough to show bloody violence, foul language or sexual immorality in a popular art form, it has a way of becoming a defacto standard in pop-culture. The reason is because people have a way of thinking to themselves like this:
"If this person was daring enough to publish this risque form of art, then I'm sure I'm not the only person who was thinking like that - that means it's normal to think that way"
When it does, it is repeated in pop culture often enough for it to become accepted, and normal. Our inhibitions to it become deadened over time and we get used to the idea that we were once repulsed about. The same thing is being done with homosexuality in the media - but I digress. The issue here is violent video games.
The fact of the matter is, that in the games of the 1980's, your killer instinct was barely tapped. They were more puzzle and reflex oriented games. Games of the 21st century however, rely less on your reflex skills and more your addiction to the thrill provided by your killer instinct. Every human being has a killer instinct. It's a part of your ID. It forms a fundamental element of your survival instinct. It's the animalistic side of you. Today's games require you to tap into your killer instinct more than ever before.
In fact, a recent survey done by Electronic Boutique and the Federal Communications Commission showed that over 95% of today's games require you to kill, not eliminate by non-violent competition, some virtual avatar - whether AI or human based. This is a massive leap over games of the 1980's, where less than 0.2% were even remotely like that. To become good at such games, you have to build up the cold-blooded nature of your killer instinct so as to be uninhibited about spilling blood.
When Mortal Kombat first debuted in 1991, gamers felt an adrenaline rush they had never felt before. Mortal Kombat was the first mass produced game that tapped into gamers' killer instinct. It was the first time they've ever felt the same kind of blood lust that a common murderer does, but in a safe, contained scenario. The unspeakable sense of euphoria of maiming another human being was unmatched. This was the ultimate next step in videogames. The first players were first taken aback by the bloodiness of Mortal Kombat. But after a while, their inhibitions fell, and they became deadened to the sensation of blood spilling as their sensibilities were inundated with the blood sport. The Killer Instinct was finally resurrected from the age of gladiators.
Nintendo Japan produced a version of the game for the Super NES which had no blood. There was however, a cheat, that allowed them to enable the blood. It was no surprise. The killer instinct in gamers had them crying for blood. Literally. The sight of a maimed player with blood gushing out of their newly made orifices added a dimension to the game that Street Fighter and Super Mario Brothers could never hope to achieve.
Today, there are no options for disabling bloody displays of violence in video games. It has become a socially accepted norm. Our sensibilities have become so numb to it, that if we play a game today in which you're not killing someone, or some bloody maiming takes place, we are quick to get bored or uninterested. The blood lust is there, and we need to be satiated for it in our video games. In today's online shooters, blowing your deathmatch opponents to flying bits of bloody kibble and carnage raises your sense of animalistic pleasure. It's a fundamental part of the joy of playing a violent video game. Your lust for blood and violence has reached tantamount levels. At this point in time, you can't possibly imagine a new game coming out where you don't kill or maime some computer generated avatar. It is unheard of, if not unacceptable.
So if you think that games have absolutely no effect on you - think again. Checkout your stash of favourite game CDs or DVDs and you'll see what I'm talking about.
Reply With Quote
Suspect Zero 
Originally Posted by Spadez
- unless the chess pieces are killing each other. 
keep quite or dem will hear we 
